for over 30 years we’ve used college teaching, in part, to help
Management students engage their imagination to design and start successful part-time
businesses – as a way of actualizing creative instincts. And now we’re bringing to you online,
this tried and proven approach to “Side-business” development, where you can learn like a
student, but earn like a boss. Except for ongoing, optional mentoring – the site is free.
Go for it! Dr. Jim Clark, Founder.

Register And

Enroll for

Courses

Successful

Sidelines

Register and Enroll in Courses: These Free or Low Cost Courses will help you learn critical skills for starting, managing, and growing your part-time side business. Each of these 2-hour courses include skill: pre-test, competency components, examples that apply the skill, follow-resources, and post-test to make sure you understand it. By combining 4 related course modules you can receive a Competency Certificate for Continuing Education Credit or job promotion.

About Our Company

We believe in Sidelines, which are part-time activities you enjoy, are [becoming] good at doing, that other people would purchase if made available.
Our Founder, Jim, discovered Sidelines as a financially strapped college student. Like many students today who can’t afford college, have schedule conflicts preventing marginal part-time work, or fear the debt associated with loans, Jim discovered how and how much having Sidelines could bridge his gap. What he later learned was how much a Sideline could positively affect his confidence, social skills, business savvy, and willingness to take on bigger challenges. As a University of Washington Management Professor for 20 years, Jim included “sidelines” as part of his course curriculum and students loved it - in part because they realized how many hugely successful people also have Sidelines. Later, when Jim started Moss Bay in Seattle as a Sideline did he fully appreciate how much a successful sideline can bring joy to others. We are delighted to provide you with Sideline tools, skills, resources, and mentoring to help you enjoy the benefits of doing your own Sideline.

Our mission

Give you the confidence, tools, and direction to start a fun and profitable Sideline of your design that requires no more than 8 hours a week of your time.

Our vision

Once you start a budding Sideline that gains traction, you will want more skills and tools to help you expand your Sideline options without increasing time requirements to manage them.

We are good at ...

Providing bite-sized resources, tools, and expert mentoring that will help you select, design, initiate, and grow a Sideline that you thoroughly enjoy, are good at doing, that other people want to purchase.

Successful Sidelines

Success is a great teacher. Please do read about these student-developed Sidelines. In each example you will see the students invested little funds, kept always their side business to 8 hours a week or less, started small, and found ways to involve helpers without getting stressed out. Put yourself in their shoes - this could be you!

RobertHome Furnace Filter Repair Service

My name is Robert. By nature I’m pretty quiet and even shy. The idea of starting my own Sideline was pretty petrifying

/ Beater Car Resale

4 students

/ Student Tutoring

Courses We Offer

We are happy to offer you 5 FREE Basic Management Skills Courses, that not only highlight the way we structure our fee-based modules, but also give you lots of concise and proven skills to help jump start your own Student Sideline. The right starting place for exploring the Modules is the Pre-Assessment of Management Skills. Please notice that the fee-based Management Courses are broken into 3 levels of proficiency: Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced, with each level containing 2-hour skill modules, focused on specific management problems you will likely face. Each course costs $5, and takes 2-hours or less to complete. The content areas for the courses cover the most critical skills you will need to be able to do, sooner or later as your Sideline grows. You can take them in any sequence you choose. Click on the course box and a description of the content will pop up. Should you want to receive a Management Skill Certificate in one of the content area, you can complete 4 of the modules within one content area. These Competency Certificate will look good on your Resume, or work promotion Application.

Meet Our Mentors for Help

Student Sideline mentors come from different backgrounds and have varied life experiences. We recognize the need to have stable lives and jobs to meet our needs, but we recognize the far greater and deeper desire to invest in adventure, even when it comes to making money on the side. We believe in “Student Sidelines” those part-time opportunities that give our talents an outlet and more cultivate into an important ingredient to support our passions and earn us a little bit
of extra cash if we’re lucky.

The idea of Side businesses has been around for centuries. Some of America’s most successful people also have Sidelines that draws on talents, interests, and curiosity that they often don’t get to develop in their primary career. It was conceived by Dr. Jim Clark in 1985 to help seniors in Management Courses at the University of Washington to realize that successful business management is about skills, not theories. He challenged his students to craft a Sideline idea on something the 1) enjoyed; 2) were [becoming] good at doing; and 3) that people wanted to buy. he also challenged them to limit their side business to a total of 8 hours per week so they were forced to both focus their idea and consider involving helpers. They loved it.

Sure - why not? The initial challenge is to keep it small, and then as it starts to gain traction, begin to involve others in running it. The backbone of our country is small business success. Sidelines are just scaled-down versions of successful small businesses. Sideliners don’t need money business experience to craft a viable idea.

No guarantees - but yes. As many of the examples described in the Management Modules demonstrate, a new sideline can gain traction in perhaps 2 months, and generate $800 or more a month in self-generated profit, requiring no more than 8 hours a week to operate.

It’s a challenge - but a good challenge. Many students in high school and college are not challenged doing assignments for teachers, with little opportunity to take on responsibilities for themselves. Sidelines engage young adults to take on challenges with confidence. The modules, mentors, and other Sideline participants will help focus time and resources so the busy student doesn’t lose site of school requirements.

Most small businesses fail, period. Applied to Student Sidelines, “fail” is more about “First Attempt In Learning”. Little to no money is invested in an initial Sideline. Few if any classmates at school even know a student’s Sideline has been initiated - until it becomes successful. If a mistake is made initially, the new Sideline developers tweaks the idea and tries it again, or switches to another Sideline.

In most cases at the beginning - No. Over time if your income escalates sharply, you will need a business license. For some specific Sidelines, a credential is required by someone on the team, but not necessarily the student founder.